By Our Correspondent
One of the world’s greatest magazines, The New Yorker, has in its current issue published what can only be described as a masterpiece of investigative journalism. Titled Buried Secrets, the article by journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, narrates in great detail the life and activities of Israeli billionaire Benny Steinmetz (photo), former owner of the Simandou iron ore mine in Guinea who is also owner of the Koidu Holdings diamond mine in Sierra Leone.
The piece, which closely resembles a James Bond movie script, tells the story of the Steinmetz family, Benny’s training as a diamond expert and his adventures in Africa, especially in Guinea, where he was able to make billions of dollars with little or no effort, the hopelessness and total immorality and depravity of the Guinean government under the late General Lansana Conte and the struggle to restore economic sanity by the current Guinean government led by Professor Alpha Conde who cannot be described as one of Steinmetz’ friends.
We are drawing our readers’ attention to this article because as Sierra Leoneans and as Africans, there is a lot they can learn from it. We are not accusing Benny Steinmetz of any wrongdoing in Sierra Leone because we do not have any evidence of that, but it’s helpful for us to know who is, at least from the point of view of the New Yorker magazine’s journalist and his superiors. We will therefore welcome a robust response from Mr. Steinmetz.
Here is the New Yorker magazine’s article on Benny Steinmetz. Please click on the link below, read, and draw your own conclusions:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/07/08/130708fa_fact_keefe?currentPage=all
Comments